You guys! The feedback we’ve received across all platforms (and in real life from family, friends, and colleagues) about our impending homestead move has been nothing short of amazing!
Granted, there are those who think we’re a bit off our rockers to leave our current (so lovely) rental, but most come around quite nicely when we explain the situation a bit further.
The monetary savings and berry harvests alone get most to a place of understanding rather quickly, but photos of the new house and property help, too 🙂
The orchard is full of a variety of heirloom fruit trees. We’re still waiting on a map from the Landlord but I believe there are apples, pears, cherries, and apricots. Don’t hold me to that though! There are also a bunch of gophers living in the orchard that we will continue our Landlord’s war on, though I anticipate that our Barn Cats will happily help.
This area is where our future goat and chicken house will be. Since this photo, with lots of blood, sweat, and tears, Kim and a couple of friends have cleared it all out.
Beautiful views and luscious apples aside, there is a lot of work to do on the property just to get the place ready for our homestead move, including (but not limited to):
- securing the fenceline down at least half the property to keep our animals in and others out
- building a goat and chicken barn with a run (see more below)
- creating an electrified run that will lead the goats from their barn, past the produce field/strawberry patch/orchard, and to their pasture each day
- clearing a very wet season’s worth of weeds from a massive portion of the upper property
- burn several piles of debris
- patching and re-sealing the dirt floors
Each project will be quite the endeavor and there’s no doubt I’ll keep you in the loop as we progress, doing my best to take before and after photos.
Our current goal is to try to complete each item on the above list before we move in, though weather and actual time may challenge us on that goal, but our fingers are crossed!
And about that Goat/Chicken Barn…
We have no idea what we’re doing. Truly.
Ok, maybe a slight idea, but we’re pretty overwhelmed at the idea of building a 36×12 structure similar to this one:
We may need to call in reinforcements on this bad boy because…just wow.
The idea right now is to have two separate structures (like in the video) joined by a breezeway of sorts. The chicken side will be 12×6 and really just for sleeping/laying eggs. The goat side will be 24×12 to accommodate our ever-growing herd with space for a couple of kidding stalls and a milking stand. Each side will open up out into a run that can be closed off to secure everyone or opened up to allow free ranging on the property during non-peak growing times.
One detail we haven’t figured out yet is the ducks. We don’t know where they’ll go just yet but aren’t incredibly worried about them as they’re very low maintenance 🙂 Maybe they’ll live in the chicken run to start…?
This is the same field mentioned in the photo looking out from under the apple tree but before the cover crop sprouted. Here you can see flood irrigation at work and the berries in the middle of the frame. There are two fields beyond the berries and the Pecos River beyond those running along the base of the mountain in the background.
Ember declared, before we even mentioned a potential move to her, that we were going to live in the Farm House. She loves it so much!
We’re not sure what they’re called yet, but there is a weed that grows on the property that is nightmare-ish when its seeds dry. They stick to *everything and hurt like a b*&$h. War has been officially declared.
This field has since been cover cropped by our Landlord and has, historically grown all sorts of produce and grains. Last year a wheat was grown in this spot. Not sure yet what next year will bring.
The Pecos River
We spent an entire day last weekend cleaning the new house top to bottom…wiping down walls and surfaces, vacuuming up bugs, dusting ceiling fans, and scrubbing every inch of the bathroom and kitchen. I’m not sure I’ve ever scrubbed so hard in my life…the type of scrubbing that shows you the grout you thought was brown is actually pink.
Pink grout! Oh how I wish I’d taken a before photo…I just didn’t think I *needed to!
The view from the front door right before we left after our cleaning frenzy. Fresh, clean house waiting for us to come back 🙂
The floors in the house are dirt floors, literally made of mud and then sealed with linseed oil, and they are in desperate need of some TLC.
Yeah…
But it’s done and ready for us to start moving some things over as soon as we’re ready.
Mind you, we still don’t have a moving date/deadline as we still don’t know whether our Landylady will put our current house up for rent or try to sell it, so we aren’t in any rush to move and want to take our time really going through our belongings and only taking what we love and is of service to us at this point in our lives…there truly is no room for fluff in our new home. Lots and lots of love and TLC, but zero fluff 😉
In the meantime, there’s clean up to do here in addition to some purging while doing our best to maintain our sanity and some holiday merriment for ourselves and E, so busy-ness abounds!
Whew!
Do tell!
How are you doing this week? Any big projects in the works?
Might you have experience with a homestead move like this?
Experience building barns or setting up electric runs from one part of the property to another?
Or maybe you know a bit about dirt floors? Their repair and care?
Oh how I’d love to hear all about your thoughts and experiences!
Wishing you a lovely day and week ahead!
xoxo,
M
I just dream of living on a farm, this is a season of life we are in. Growing and preparing your own food is amazing as everything is processed nowadays. It all sounds so great & I am sure it is beautiful up there.
Your space looks amazing! I will look forward to seeing your adventures that you are closer to your dreams. As everyone’s homestead dreams and visions differ from each other. Your supportive advice about the garden that needs to be big and in full screen may process to achieve functional homestead. Thank you!!!
Wow, new ways of homesteading, So excited for you all on the new adventure!!! I can’t wait, keep it up
Hi Kris! Congrats, this is really awesome! it looks like winter in Russia 🙂 hahaha
My goodness, it seems like I was just reading about you moving in to this place. So excited for you all on the new adventure!!!
If I may ask, does the landlord have new renters yet? We live in the area and are looking for a new place.
Hi Jo! Time is moving so fast! I can barely keep up :-/ Sorry to say that our Landlady has found a new renter! We are 15 days from the move…Crunch time!
Best of luck to you on your house hunt! May you find the perfect spot!
That chicken coop on the video is not bad one!
Wow! I’m so behind on my blog reading- Congrats! The new place looks amazing I look forward to seeing your adventures there!
Oh, don’t you worry, I’m so behind on blog reading and commenting it’s embarrassing! But alas, life first, then blog 😉 Good to hear from you, Jessie! Hope your 2018 is off to a brilliant start!
OMG! I am so excited for you! It all sounds so great and I am sure it is beautiful up there. Can you please tell me how much acres do you have? This is so much space to make, create, and enjoy.
Thank you so much for sharing our enthusiasm! We will sit on almost 10 acres 🙂 Plenty of space for creativity *and pasture for the goats! We couldn’t be happier or feeling more grateful!
Sounds like its going to be quite the adventure. Looks like an amazing place to live. Congrats
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Thank you, Chris! We’re enjoying this latest twist in the road 🙂 So far, at least! 😉
OK, you win on being busy. Wow, I guess it has been a while. It looks like an interesting new homestead for you. Beautiful photos.
LOL…Life is funny in all of its twists and turns, isn’t it. One step at a time.
The place looks amazing. I Have no trouble seeing why you’d want to move there, though the work involved could be quite daunting. I couldn’t read the captions on your photos as the galleries aren’t working for me today – clicking just takes you to that photo’s file. You might want to check that they’re working for others.
Hi Judith! Thank you for your positive take on our move! We’re so grateful for this opportunity and trust it will be exactly what we need 🙂 Thank you also for the heads up about the galleries! I couldn’t fix the captions within the galleries so I just busted the pics up so the captions are readable. So weird! Hope you have a lovely week ahead!!!
Congratulations, this is awesome! What a lovely space and it’s so great it gets you closer to your big dream. I am so curious about dirt floors. I have never known anyone with dirt floors and hope you will post more about that! Hugs to you all.
Hi Kelly! Thank you so much! We are so psyched! I know little about dirt floors but trust I’ll be schooled quickly 😉 I will absolutely post all the details as they unfold! Hugs back atcha! Hope you’re well and enjoying the gentle slide into winter!
OH, I missed the first announcement! This sounds exciting for you. I can hardly believe you’ve been in the current place for 2+ years — seems like you just made that move. Wishing you well on this leg of your adventure!
Hi Kris! Oh, in some ways it feels as though we’ve just moved into our current home and in some ways it feels as though we’ve been here forever! Thank you for the good wishes, we’re so excited about this next chapter and are anxious to begin 🙂 So much for a restful winter 😉 Hope you’re well and enjoying the tail end of 2017!